


Horizon

by annalore



Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:04:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5960047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annalore/pseuds/annalore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This is the part that no one talks about. Riding off into the sunset, when you're halfway in between the place you're going and one you've left behind.</i>
</p><p>After the Super Bowl, Peyton does something he left off his list and tries to make peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> After the game was over and Peyton was done speaking, I said to JacAlley, "There's a story where he goes home with Tom Brady instead." This isn't really that story, but it's the best one I have.

Tom smiles and laughs, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling. He's completely relaxed now, post coital, naked, curled up skin to skin.

"What about going home, kissing your kids, your wife?" he asks with a smirk. "Drinking beer?"

Peyton can't help but love Tom like this, as smug and insufferable as he can get. He knows that in a lot of ways, this has been harder for Tom than for him. He leans in and kisses him, slowly, deeply, because he can.

"Well, Tom, as you know, I kissed my kids and I tucked them into bed. Kissed my wife. Didn't think the TV audience would appreciate the part where I leave the hotel and go fuck Tom Brady senseless. And then tomorrow, I'm going home and drinking that Budweiser."

Tom ducks and hides his face, but Peyton can still see the flush creep down the back of his neck. He laughs and kisses that telltale neck, then again, and again until he's in danger of leaving a mark. Tom pulls back grinning, cocky again.

"Super Bowl 50, huh?" he says, teasing. "Who'd have thought?"

It's Peyton’s turn to blush now, but he doesn't turn away, try to hide from it. He just looks at Tom and shakes his head. "I'll never have what you have, Brady."

Tom closes his eyes and his mood shifts again like quicksilver. He tilts his head in and rests it against Peyton's chest. "Little Tommy Brady, up there with Joe Montana, three time MVPs. Who would've thought that? But I wanted to be in your place tonight, almost to the point where it would've meant you wouldn't be."

He rubs Tom's back, because he knows how much an admission like that costs him, how he runs from the dark places and imperfections inside him. "Any of us would," he says, even though he knows Tom means it more than that and truly wishes he didn't. Knows that the “almost” in the sentence just scraped its way into being truth.

"Don't envy me, Peyton Manning. You have everything you need. You should be with your family."

He wishes, for a moment, that he could always have the Tom that laughs and teases, the one that's bold and satisfied and assured of his place in the world. But that's not Tom, not the whole of him or even the least of him. Not the paradox of a man that he's loved for all these years.

He lifts his hand to Tom's chin, tilts it up until Tom reluctantly meets his eyes. "You are my family."

Tom smiles, but he looks so sad, so tired. "But you have to know this is the end."

Peyton swallows hard and he nods, just once. It's all he can do against the lump in his throat and the tears burning in his eyes. He's not sure that he did, but it seems obvious now. Inevitable.

This is the part that no one talks about. Riding off into the sunset, when you're halfway in between the place you're going and one you've left behind. This nowhere feeling. Wanting to stay when you know you can't and only hoping where you're going will be better.

Tom leans in and kisses his temple, then his cheek, and pulls Peyton in close. "Shh," he whispers. "Just be with me. Let me love you."

"Always, Tom."

Tom is soft and warm and familiar. He's relaxed again, or maybe for the first time in weeks. "Always. I have always loved you. Even when I didn't know how."

Peyton sighs and feels the tension inside himself finally start to loosen. "You've known. You've known for weeks."

Tom doesn't quite nod and Peyton's eyes are drifting shut anyway, but he imagines feels the assent. Maybe he doesn't even need it. He’s seen the stress Tom’s been carrying around and all too readily attributed it to jealousy and bitterness, and he wasted energy he should’ve spent preparing for the game wondering why for once in his life, Tom Brady couldn’t be happy for someone else.

But that’s not Tom, not the one who let out a whoop of joy and lifted him off his feet the moment he saw him after the game. That’s not the Tom who’s lying next to him, holding him as though it’s the last time. Who’s known this whole time that it would be. "Why carry these burdens on your own?"

There's a long pause, and for a moment he thinks Tom's just not going to answer, or maybe has fallen asleep. "I needed you to win. _I_ needed that, Peyton."

In between. He loves his kids, he loves his wife. But Tom is all alone in this house of his, his own kids back in Boston and New York, his own wife in a hotel by the stadium. Tom is still the boy who talked him into bed with pretty words about admiring his visionary mind for the game and Tom is a man starting to show his age and Tom is a rival who’s mostly beaten him when it counts.

And in the end, Tom wanted him to win. He doesn’t think Tom’s ever genuinely wanted that for anyone other than himself.

"Then I have everything I need, Tom. And I'm where I belong."

He hopes Tom understands that. He hopes, that if this is the end for them, that Tom knows he made a difference, had a place in his life, even if it couldn't be mentioned on TV or to a stadium full of people.

He hopes that Tom can find a way to be happy.


End file.
